Qatar’s wheeze to stay liquid

The tiny Middle East state is turning its huge gas reserves into jet fuel and even shampoo ingredients at a $19bn new Shell plant

Take a video tour Shell’s gas-to-liquids plant in Qatar — the biggest of its kind in the world

DRESSED in white overalls, wraparound shades and a hard hat, Mladen Matak
leans on a rail on the bridge of the Mekaines, a gas tanker nearly twice as
long as London’s Gherkin skyscraper is high.

He shifts his gaze toward the roiling orange flame of a nearby gas-flaring
tower. Standing about 150ft above the emerald waters of the Gulf, Matak is
at eye level with the silent fireball.

A change in the wind swathes him in a wave of heat that disappears as quickly
as it arrives. Matak, an executive at Shell, operator of the Mekaines, is
unperturbed.

“What they burn in three seconds is enough to keep a family warm all winter,”
he said. The “they” is Qatar. Its ruler, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani,
won’t be too concerned about the billions of dollars that go up in smoke in
the innumerable flaring towers that pock the desert.